Case 15: The Disturbing Mansion [Part Two] (6)

After getting off the bus, we climbed up the dark mountain road for a long time, and the mansion we reached at last was the very definition of a haunted house.

The mansion merely loomed jet black beyond the white fence.

We were silent for a while, standing still with lights in one hand in front of the iron gate.

“…Shall we go?”

I called out to Yoishi, who unusually didn’t try to enter, and I pushed the creaking gate open.

The large garden was already rampant with weeds, with nary a place to plant my feet.

I raised my legs in exaggerated movements as I continued, until I eventually arrived close to the front door of the mansion. However, the door was boarded shut to deter anyone from entering. I shone my light to see a sign that read, 『Unauthorized entry is forbidden』. There were many large spiders and spiderwebs that hung all over, something you would never see in the city.

I moved a little further away and aimed my light here and there. Beyond the window on the second floor was a curtain drawn halfway that looked eerily like someone’s head would peek out if I continued looking. Ivy ran along the wall of the mansion extending all the way up to the roof.

“….This mansion is way beyond what I expected.”

I said so, but there was no reply.

I turned around, to see that Yoishi was silently staring at a section in the garden.

I approached and stood next to her, and aimed my light in the direction of Yoishi’s gaze. What lay there was an old camping grill. It was already rusted and fallen over. A small camping chair was also lying there. They might have been used for barbecuing here once in the past. I crouched down to shine my light at them, and found several firework cinders on the ground as well. These symbols of a peaceful summer holiday were saddening to see in the garden of a decayed mansion.

“…Are you alright?”

Seeing her shoulders slowly move up and down, I called out to her.

Yoishi nodded without a word, but she indeed did not have her usual vigor when she faced the occult.

“It’s probably a little late to enter this mansion right now. Let’s pitch our tent here, shall we?”

I raised my voice as cheerfully as I could, and lowered the rucksack on my back.

“I have a friend in university named Yamaoka. He’s in the mountaineering club, extremely fit despite his small size, and he has a great sense of humor to boot. He let me borrow a lot of stuff. A tent for three. Two sleeping bags. I brought a lot of food as well, and even a burner. Let’s grill something for dinner, shall we? Ahh, or maybe you’d like me to make some coffee?”

“If it’s a bedroom you need then there’s one inside.”

“….Eh?”

“On the second floor, there’s a room that is safe to use.”

“No…the inside is, um, it’s quite dangerous right? This isn’t the usual haunted spot investigation. It’s better that we go in when it’s bright.”

I said that, but Yoishi had already set off for the front door, used her foot as a pivot and audaciously began to remove the planks that had been hammered into place. She removed the planks one-by-one, causing cracking and scraping noises to echo loudly in the mountain that was deathly silent at night.

“It’s not a problem if we put a tent out here though.”

With her back towards me, Yoishi spoke as she removed the planks.

“There’s a dead person in that garden as well.”

“……….Eh?”

“If that’s alright with you, then you can set up camp there.”

“……Say that from the start.”

Having no choice, I helped her.

The planks had rotted considerably, probably from the many years of wind and rain, and were removed fairly easily.

“The key?”

“A, ahh, here.”

I took the key Sako gave to me out of my pocket and handed it over to Yoishi.

Yoishi stared at the key for a while—before slowly placing it into the keyhole. A pleasant click rang out, and the lock was opened. As the creaking door slowly opened, I felt something rustling beyond the darkness—and I closed my eyes in an instant. After taking a single deep breath, I slowly opened my eyes.

A thick, incredibly heavy darkness leaked out from behind the half open door.

But, Yoishi remained there, standing still as a rock. Her back, which would never hesitate to step forth into any darkness, wasn’t there. All that was there was the back of a young high school girl, who was unable to take one step ahead in the face of overwhelming darkness.

“Could it be—that you’re…scared?”

“……..I don’t know.”

Yoishi answered silently.

“I don’t know if this is what it means to be afraid. But, my feet are…”

I looked to see that Yoishi’s feet in her black leather shoes were quivering slightly.

I went back to pick up my rucksack, put it on my back and silently gripped Yoishi’s hand. The moment I gripped her soft and cold hand---Ahh, I realized.

The reason why I came all the way out here. And, what needed to be done here.

Wasn’t that, to confront the past together with Yoishi—And, to hear her true name from her own mouth?

Krishna-san had said it before. 『Names are what bind the entirety of living things to the world』.

That’s right. There was only one thing for the disciples of the witch to do. That was to research the real names of all events and creatures in the world and their history, and once you take back your ‘true name’, the worn ‘W’ should disappear.

Alright, I said to myself, and put strength into my stomach—

“…Let’s go. Alright?”

I asked, and Yoishi gave a small nod without a word.

For the first time since I’d gone with her through numerous paranormal events—I took the lead.

With a dull thud, I threw the door open.

I was greeted with the smell of dust assailing my nostrils, and a damp atmosphere that coiled around my body. With my right hand gripping Yoishi’s hand, I illuminated the mansion with the light in my left hand, and slowly took a step forward.

In front of the wide entrance hallway was a corridor, and it was dark to the point where my mini light could barely illuminate it. Nevertheless, I could see that the stairs to the second floor were on my right-hand side, and the spacious living room lay beyond the door to my left-hand side. At any rate, I felt countless presences everywhere, and I asked as I tried to keep my eyes focused on my feet.

“Where is the bedroom you said we could use?”

“Upstairs, at the back.”

“…Got it.”

I tried not to look anywhere, as I barged inside while still wearing my shoes, which was, sorry to say, always the case with haunted spots.

The stairs creaked as I climbed them one-by-one. I aimed my light up to see that the second floor looked even darker. The light formed a ceiling shadow of the handrail that moved, which felt extremely unsettling.

“The back of the second floor—that way, huh?”

As soon as I reached the top of the stairs, I saw that there were doors on each side of the second-floor corridor, and a door in the back. I quickened my steps as if I would be in a safe zone once I reached there, and pulled Yoishi with me towards that door. There, I opened it in a single breath.

Inside was a simple guest room with two beds, a small table, and a closet installed on the wall. I breathed out a sigh of relief, pulled Yoishi inside, and closed the door.

“It sure is a nice room.”

As I said that, I tried to twiddle with the switch on the wall, but as expected there didn’t seem to be any electricity, and it remained completely dark.

“Ah, come to think of it.”

I suddenly remembered and took out a portable lantern from my rucksack. I clumsily fiddled it with my shaky hands. As taught by Yamaoka from the mountaineering club, I thrust a rechargeable lighter in the hole and ignited it. Soon, a warm flame flared up and eventually grew, dimly illuminating the interior of the room.

“……….Ohh.”

“………….”

Yoishi and I, merely gazed at that light in a daze.

I had thought countless times that light was truly grand —but this was the first time I had been moved to the point of tears. Yamaoka insisted it when I borrowed the camping equipment, 『Camping is a completely different experience without it』, and forcibly crammed it in the rucksack over my objections….but, If I safely make it back, I have to express my profound thanks. If I didn’t have this, then the strange intimidating air that enveloped this mansion might have continued to weaken my spirit.

“This sure is good. It’s somehow really encouraging.”

“…Yeah.”

Yoishi sat on the bed, and unusually agreed with me.

I looked at her for some reason—and after that, I looked at the other bed.

I just now realized that it was only me and Yoishi here; We had sneaked in at night in an uninhabited house commonly known as the 『Hanging mansion』.

“Ermm.”

I cleared my throat once and asked.

“Is it a problem If I use any of the other rooms?”

Yoishi slightly cocked her head to the side.

“You know, it’s problematic for the two of us to sleep in the same room. Just now you said that this room was not a problem, but what about the other rooms….or to be more precise, what exactly is the problem with them?”

“It’s fine if you don’t mind, but.”

Yoishi answered dispassionately.

“The people who used the other two rooms are dead.”

“……………..”

...... I can't do it. I absolutely cannot do it.

In addition, this place was incomparably heavier and darker than all the haunted places we had visited so far. I nodded silently and sat down on the vacant bed after wiping away the dust on it. From there, we were both silent for a while. She had lied down with her back towards me, and I was clearly getting an aura from her that a conversation was impossible.

It was still just a little past 8 pm.

It was a time when you’d normally be awake and doing activities, but the mountains at night were a different story altogether. When the moon hid behind the clouds, there was no light anywhere besides this lantern. Everything was painted pitch black, and it made you believe that you were in a completely different world, a world where human rules no longer applied.

It was just the two of us alone in the ruins of a building that was deathly silent— not an unusual situation for us, and yet, there was a strange atmosphere in the room. Perhaps because Yoishi was not her usual self.

Her eyes always glimmered in the face of the paranormal.

The more grotesque the situation trended towards, the stronger that dark light would shine.

But, right now, I—

I knew that the dark colored light at the back of her eyes was the thing I had to face. That knowledge made me feel as if there was someone else here besides the two of us, one more opponent, of an unknown nature.

But I had come mentally prepared with that in mind.

Determined, I calmly opened my rucksack. I took out copies of old newspaper and magazine articles I had obtained from the library before coming here, and spread them out under the light of the lantern.

It was commonly known as, 『The Hanging Mansion Family Massacre Case』. The major newspapers referred to it as 『K Lakeside Mountain Retreat Murder Case』, but the former was how it was referred to by the weekly magazines. And the source of that name came from the fact that the head of a household was found hanged in this mansion.

It happened around eleven years ago--- in short, it occurred on the 31st of July 2001.

I continued to read in sequence from a newspaper article to a weekly magazine article.

『Yesterday, inside a certain building in a mountain forest in K city, Y prefecture, the bodies of an active duty police officer and a Tokyo family that was staying at the house for a short period of time were discovered. The Y prefectural police have set up an investigation headquarters and have begun an investigation into the possibility of it being a crime or an accident. The connection between the family and the police officer is uncertain, but there is a possibility that the family was involved in some kind of trouble. According to the police statement, the bodies of the father and mother were discovered inside, and the body of the police officer and the family pet were discovered outside the building. The bodies of the eldest and younger daughter were discovered in the nearby K lake.』

『The father was discovered hanging by his neck in the living room.』『The mother was found dismembered in the storage room.』『The head patrol officer from the Metropolitan Police department was discovered stabbed to death in the garden.』『Next to the head patrol officer was the body of a dog which is believed to be the family pet.』『Around 1 kilometer below at K Lakeshore, the body of the elder sister was discovered. With lacerations at the base of her throat.』『The body of the second daughter was also discovered at the same location. She drowned to death.』

As I continued to read, my feelings became heavier and heavier.

According to one expert's theory in a weekly magazine, this incident was a family suicide carried out by the father: he killed the mother, the officer, the dog, and when the sisters ran away, he followed them and killed them at the lake, and then returned to the mansion where he killed himself. I see, it more or less made sense. However, there were still mysteries that remained, such as why a police officer belonging to the Metropolitan Police department happened to be present in a mountain retreat at Y prefecture? And why did the father decide to commit a family suicide?

Above all, what I was most concerned about was how Yoishi and Sako were involved in this incident.

If it were eleven years ago, Yoishi would have been six or seven years old.

I could deduce that she must have been the elder or the younger sister, but—before, umm, I think it was in the Koumei Institute’s ‘Clock Tower Incident’? It felt as if she had talked about her elder sister. Which meant, that Yoishi must have been the younger daughter.

Having racked my brains on it thus far--I read through one of the articles once more, and found a mention of ‘serious condition’ with regards to the status of the younger daughter. I also found an article that said, ‘She was transported to the hospital unconscious’ and, ‘The younger daughter in serious condition also passed away’. In short, the life and death status of the younger daughter was not mentioned clearly. There was no news of her whereabouts thereafter, as if she had dissolved into the darkness of this world. However, whether the culprit was her father or an outsider, the fact that the younger daughter survived, meant that she had gone through extreme hell--She had witnessed the entirety of what occurred in this mansion from beginning to end, and was probably aware of the identity of the true culprit.

And, thereupon,

I suddenly felt a strange tug at my heart.

It was as if I had overlooked an important path hidden by the vegetation in the dark forest.

I rearranged the scattered articles I had copied in order of date published. And then, I remembered what I felt when I was copying the articles in the library.

Yes—around two weeks after the incident, the number of reports on the incident dropped dramatically. After a month had passed, the verified reports were nowhere to be found. It is true that a wonder lasts but nine days, and even if the Japanese people had a capricious nature-- but this was such a sensational incident. And on top of that, it was still unresolved to the present day. Wasn't it forgotten about a bit too quickly?

It was as if... they were trying to pretend it never have happened.

“... Press restrictions, huh?”

As I recall, if an incident fulfilled certain criteria, then in accordance with press agreements, the media may refrain from reporting it.

But I heard that it was only limited to kidnapping cases, or anything relating to the imperial household or political issues—

---No.

No…that wasn’t all it was limited to.

I recalled an article I had read on an occult website. If I recalled correctly, there was an incident in which police rushed to the scene of the crime where a mother had been murdered, they found her infant daughter sitting there in a state of insanity and muttered, ‘A demon appeared from the wall’. There was much debate as to the true identity of the ‘demon’, but news reporting of that incident suddenly ceased all at once.

There were a lot of occultic theories on the internet surrounding people who lived in the vicinity of the scene of the crime, but one day, the thread was locked with a message from someone believed to be an insider.

It was, ‘The culprit was the daughter’, ‘Because she is an infant, press restrictions would be imposed.’

Something cold began to rise beneath my feet.

I slowly turned my head towards Yoishi who was lying on her side on the bed.

It can’t be—

The first time I met Yoishi--- Yes, back in the ‘Wish-fulfilling House’.

When I introduced myself, she merely said, 『I’m Yoishi』. I asked her, 『Isn't that a handle?』, and she denied it, saying,『My surname is Mitsurugi. Not that it matters』. Back then, I wondered if she was fine with revealing her real name on the internet, but—was it because it wasn’t her real name?

Come to think of it, I found out that the Noh-faced man who called himself Yoishi’s father belonged to the ‘Cabinet Information Research Office’. That meant it could influence the media to a greater or lesser extent— and not just that, it was also possible for it to take custody of a girl whose whereabouts were unknown….? No, what reason would someone in a government organization have for adopting the younger daughter?

Sako had been chasing the ‘everlasting night stone’ which was written in kanji as 「常夜石」. And he said that it was something that, 『Amplifies people’s negative emotions, and manipulates them from the inside without them even knowing』, and that 『It makes people believe that people don’t deserve to exist, it makes them destroy their surroundings, and themselves』.

If ‘Mitsurugi’ was that man’s surname, but then, why did her first name become ‘Yoishi’…..?

Before I’d realized it, my legs had started shaking. Right now, I thought the black-haired girl sleeping in the bed next to me was someone truly terrifying, and I felt fear to the point where my blood was being drained.

---It can’t be, the true culprit from ten years ago was…..

“………..That’s right.”

At that moment, I jumped up with a start when Yoishi whispered as if she had read my heart. Yoishi slowly got up, moved to the edge of the bed and sat there. And, she gazed for a while at the countless photocopies of articles scattered near my hands—

Eventually, she moved her pale face towards me. I trembled at the appearance of the dark light in her large eyes.

“……Hey, are you scared?”

“……….”

“Are you…. Scared of me right now?”

I couldn’t answer instantly—

But eventually, Ahh, I managed to squeeze a voice from my stinging, parched throat.

“………I’m scared. Of course I’m scared. To be honest, if we’d just met, I think I would have run away.”

“…………..”

“But….it’s strange ---right now, I don’t care anymore.”

I forcefully put on a smile on my face.

Then, for some reason, I felt the back of my heart quietening into silence.

“If you are a survivor of this incident….and, if you’ve now taken the name of ‘Yoishi Mitsurugi’, as someone who really does have another name. Then I don’t see anything wrong with that. I can’t see ghosts. I want to believe that they’re there, but to be honest I still can’t say for sure that they’re there. Even after witnessing countless paranormal things, I still can’t tell at all. But, what I truly believe is that there are souls.

Warm souls, terrifying souls……. There must be countless souls in this world. They might dwell in buildings, in paintings, in music---they might be the strength of people’s thoughts, but I feel their presence and I believe in their existence. And, the shape of your soul-- which I can feel, which has gone through so much pain and suffering, I believe that it’s beautiful despite everything. And I love that shape.”

“…………………….”

Yoishi remained frozen in place, as she continued to gaze at my face---

And her beautifully shaped lips were about to say, ‘You--’, when they stopped.

“…………You?”

“You….you truly are a fool.”

Yoishi’s voice had a tinge of embarrassment in it, when--

……….Plop………..

That sound echoed.

It sounded like water dripping somewhere.

That sound, which seemed as if it was right next to my ears, made me shudder for some reason.

“Is there… a water leak somewhere?”

I somehow managed to say that, and Yoishi shook her head.

“….It’s calling me.”

“…Eh?”

“It’s in the bathroom.”

Declaring that, something flickered beyond Yoishi’s eyes that was illuminated by the lantern. Dark colored eyes and something I arbitrarily named was wriggling. And, that itself was the moment ‘Yoishi’ turned into the ‘everlasting night stone’.

「Say, don’t you want to go and take a look?」

Yoishi would probably whisper that from here.

And that was where the other world would begin. With a jerk, the world would flip upside down, and what would appear there would be a world you shouldn’t see. The ground beneath my feet would tremble, creating a floating sensation as if I had lost everything. But, I would not be able to fight against it. It would be unbearably scary, but I would end up heading there as if being dragged by Yoishi---

And.

However, Yoishi didn’t say anything no matter how much time passed.

Even though there was terror right next to her, she remained motionless as she continued to listen closely to the sound of water.

“…Yoishi?”

“This place is the reason why-- I hate baths.”

“…………”

“I… ended up making a mistake here I could never take back.”

“….What, happened here?”

I asked her, but Yoishi remained silent and did not answer. Her face was contorted in pain, and she merely hung her head down.

If I continued to gaze at that face, an unbearable sadness would sweep over me as well, and before I’d realized, I stood up and said, “Okay”. I drew closer to Yoishi and sniffed at her neck.

Yup, she stinks.

“Shall we take it, together?”

“………Eh………..?”

“The bath. If you know that this place is the cause, then that’s even more of a reason.”

“I, I refuse.”

“Shut up, just come. You haven’t taken a bath since you left my home, right?”

I was fully aware that I was saying something outrageous, but I was desperate when I decided to confront her.

I pulled Yoishi’s hand and made her stand, and spoke as if to conceal my embarrassment.

“I’ll wash your head. And this time—we’ll overcome it all.”